A GRACIOUS CONDITION WHEREIN
YOU GREATLY REJOICE, THOUGH NOW FOR A SEASON, IF NEED BE, YOU
ARE IN HEAVINESS THROUGH MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS. 1 Peter 1, verse
6 What a blessed motto and superscription
over the dark lintels of sorrow! If need be, every sharp arrow
from the quiver of God is feathered with it. Write it, child of affliction,
over every trial your God sees fit to send. If He calls you
down from the sunny mountain heights to the dark glades, hear
Him saying, There is a need be. If He has dashed the cup of prosperity
from your lips, curtailed your creature comforts, diminished
your basket and your store, hear Him saying, There is a need be. If he has ploughed and furrowed
your soul with severe bereavement, extinguished light after light
in your dwelling, hear him therefore stilling the tumult of your grief. There is a need be. Yes, believe
it, there is some profound reason for your trial, which at present
may be indiscernible. No furnace will be hotter than
he sees needed. Sometimes, indeed, his teachings
are mysterious. We can with difficulty spell
out the letters, God is Love. We can see no bright light in
our cloud. It is all mystery. Not one break
is there in the sky. No, hear what God the Lord speaks,
if need be. He does not long leave his people
alone, if he sees the chariot-wheels dragging heavily. He will take
his own means to sever them from an absorbing love of the world,
to pursue them out of self, and dislodge usurping clay idols
that may have vaulted on the throne, which he alone may occupy. Before your present trial he
may have seen your love waxing cold, or your influence for good
lessening. As the sun puts out the fire,
the sun of earthly prosperity may have been extinguishing the
fires of your soul. You may have been shining less
brightly for Christ, effecting some guilty compromise with an
insinuating and seductive world. He has appointed the very discipline
and dealing needful. Nothing less could have done.
Be still, and know that He is God. That need be, remember,
is in the hands of infinite love, infinite wisdom, infinite power. Trust Him in little things as
well as great things, in trifles as well as emergencies. Seek
to have unquestioning faith. Though other paths, doubtless,
would have been selected by you, had the choice been in your hands,
be it yours to listen to his voice at every turn in the road,
saying, This is the way, walk in it. We may not be able to
understand it now, but one day we shall come to find that affliction
is one of God's blessed angels, a ministering spirit, sent forth
to minister to those who are heirs of salvation. Lovelier
indeed to the eye is the azure blue, the fleecy summer vapors,
or gold and vermilion of western sunsets. But what would become
of earth if no dark clouds from time to time hung over it, distilling
their treasures, reviving and refreshing its drooping vegetable
tribes? Is it otherwise with the soul?
No, the cloud of sorrow is needed. Its every raindrop has an inner
meaning of love. If, even now, afflicted one,
these clouds are gathering, and the tempest sighing, lift up
your eye to the divine scroll gleaming in the darkened heavens,
and remember that He who has put the rainbow of promise there
saw also a need be for the cloud on which it rests.